There’s potentially a lot to dig in Sony’s TX-55: Like, it’s only 12.2mm thin and there’s a 3.3-inch OLED touchscreen. More importantly: It’ll let you shoot nearly full-res photos while taking video, and Sony’s promising full-res, pixel-perfect virtual zoom up to 10x.
The main magic going on here? What Sony’s calling “By Pixel Super Resolution” processing on top of Sony’s 16.2-megapixel Exmor R CMOS sensor. It’s what allows the camera to simultaneously snap 12MP photos while shooting 1080p video—without interrupting the video—and pull off 5x digital zoom with full-res images. (On top of the cam’s 5x optical zoom, that’s 10x total virtual zoom.)
Other boastable numbers: Autofocus locks in 0.1 second, with auto-stitched panoramas that span 42.9 megapixels. It’s $US350 when it comes out in September. If the real thing matches what’s on paper, this could be an interesting little camera. [Sony]